My name is Kenneth Fisher and I am Senior DBA for a large (multi-national) insurance company. I have been working with databases for over 20 years starting with Clarion and Foxpro. I’ve been working with SQL Server for 12 years but have only really started “studying” the subject for the last 3. I don’t have any real "specialities" but I enjoy trouble shooting and teaching. Thus far I’ve earned by MCITP Database Administrator 2008, MCTS Database Administrator 2005, and MCTS Database Developer 2008. I’m currently studying for my MCITP Database Developer 2008 and should start in on the 2012 exams next year. My blog is at www.sqlstudies.com.

It’s T-SQL Tuesday again and this month our host is Boris Hristov (b/t). He has asked us to discuss Interviewing. (If I was his boss I might be wondering if he was looking for tips. :) )

Interviewing is hard. You are trying to find that perfect candidate in a very short period of time. You have to find someone who is not only capable of doing the job but will be able to grow and thrive in the job. On top of that you need someone who fits in with the corporate culture and who gets along with their teammates. This involves two separate interviews, a technical one and a more “traditional” personal interview. I’m old enough to have had a large variety of interviews and I’ve seen some fairly extreme versions of both. One thing you will notice is that none of these are the normal “sit in a room and ask someone questions” interview. Those work ok but in my experience they only work “ok”. If you want to succeed big or fail big you tend to have to think outside of the box.

Technical

Interview by nepotism

Possibly the worst technical interview I’ve ever been through wasn’t one. A friend of mine told his boss I had the skills and that was it. As it happens this was early in my career and I didn’t actually have the skills they needed. I had never in fact opened that particular piece of software. Now to be fair my friend helped me out and I worked hard. I picked up the language fairly quickly and I like to think they were happy they hired me.

Interview by test

The best technical interview I ever had was more of a test than an interview. Six of us sat down at individual cubes and were given an actual request the company had received from one of their customers a few months back. It required finding data in an unfamiliar database, creating a stored procedure to process the data correctly and generating a report to display it. It wasn’t the hardest test in the world but it wasn’t easy either. What it was however, was a view into exactly what type of work I would be expected to do. I got to see what my job would be, and they got to see what type of work I could actually do in that position. And in case you are interested I was one of two people to actually finish the test and I got the job because I had made a point of heavily commenting my SP.

Personal

Interview by desperation

The worst “personal” interview is another one that didn’t actually happen. (Notice a theme here?) They were so happy with my “tech” interview and so desperate to fill the position that I was immediately offered the job. And as you might expect it didn’t work out all that well. I wasn’t a terribly good fit even though I got along well with the people and admired their culture. It was a very (and I mean VERY) high stress culture. I managed a year but I’m not someone who thrives on stress so eventually I had to leave.

Interview by lunch

My all-time favorite personal interview was really non-traditional. After a traditional technical interview the remaining candidates were each taken to lunch by the team (5 people including the manager). The interview took place throughout the meal. The nice thing here is that we got to know each other (even if briefly) in a relaxed atmosphere. The individuals (and particularly the manager) of the team could ask me questions in a comfortable setting and I was able to return the favor in a similar manner. I didn’t end up with that job, but this form of interview was comfortable and low stress. I think done right it can give the best over all feel for a candidate.